Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. “Nothing Personal” Recap

Last seen in Captain America: The Winter Solider in a job interview for Stark Industries, we see Maria Hill just coming out of a Congress hearing. Hill is talking to Pepper Potts on the phone about the hearing and the fact that the people tailing her are so easy to spot. All of sudden her tails are all knocked out of play and in an alley way, Hill and Melinda May meet up.

May asks Hill to help Coulson as he won’t accept help from her. Hill doesn’t know what kind of help she can give since she is now working for Stark under the guise of working on a private security project.

Also, May wants to know who ordered Project T.A.H.I.T.I on Coulson as she fears it was Alexander Pierce, who uncovered to be a HYDRA agent so therefore Coulson might awaken and become HYDRA. However, Hill says she doesn’t know who Fury reported to and Fury is dead so they can’t ask him. May is skeptical of his death as she should be. Hill tells May that whatever secrets there were to TAHITI is buried with Coulson. May doesn’t understand what it means but Hill mentions that Fury likes riddles. May leaves but Hill gets caught by the FBI.

Back in the Providence safe house, the only useable video footage is of the Bus’ loading bay. Everyone sees May leave and sees Ward and Skye hand-in-hand enter the Bus sometime later.

Speaking of Ward and Skye, they are on their way to Los Angeles and the diner where Skye first met Mike Peterson. Skye told Ward that place is the key to encrypting the drive.

Spirits are low at the Providence base so FitzSimmons decides to cheer people up by making pancakes. Simmons goes to get the batter while Fitz gets the griddle going. Alas, pancakes are to be had as Simmons finds Koenig’s body while Fitz finds a message from Skye on one of the base’s fake windows that says “Ward is Hydra”.

Fitz doesn’t believe that Ward could betray them but after Simmons examines the body it can only be Ward that could have killed Koenig. So the team uses this anger and channels it to get the base’s comm system and manages to locate the Bus in Los Angeles.

As the team prepares to go. the base is surrounded by soldiers that turn out to be Special Forces led by Talbot. Coulson wonders how Talbot knew to find them and Hill emerges to say it was her.

We see Talbot interrogating the SHIELD team minus Coulson. Talbot wants intel for a lesser sentence but our SHIELD agent say nothing. Meanwhile, Coulson and Hill are having a similar conversation. Hill wants Coulson just to give Talbot any bit of information and then he and his team can go their separate ways and enter civilian life. Coulson pretty much says no can do as he doesn’t want to leave Skye hanging. If he knows Skye, they are buying them time so they can come and get her and they can’t do that if they are arrested. So Hill and Coulson take down Talbot and his team and our SHIELD agents are off to LA.

Skye and Ward are at the diner with Skye doing her best to stall for time. Ward notices some police officers come in and he starts to get a little nervous and starts to rush Skye but she can’t be rushed as she hasn’t encrypted the drive yet. Skye then starts to talk about how hard it is to have a double life and lying to everyone. Skye is pretty much laying out to Ward that she know he is HYRDA and in fact the police come to take in Ward and Skye as she tipped them off. But Ward manages to escape the clutches of the police and chases after Skye. Skye drives off in a cop car but is stopped by Deathlock aka Mike Peterson.

Back on the Bus, Skye refuses to help Ward as she is disgusted at his betrayal. Ward says that is wasn’t personal as he was just completing a mission. This further enrages Skye and she thinks Ward let Quinn shoot her. But Ward says that was all Garrett and he wouldn’t let anything happen to her. Skye calls Ward a Nazi as she equates HYDRA with them and also a serial killer. Skye proceeds to head butt him and Ward ends up handcuffing Skye to the Bus’s stairwell. Skye also pleads with Deathlock for help as she believes there is still good in him and tells him that he is a father. But the good man is gone as he doesn’t trust SHIELD anymore as that group is supposedly keeping his family safe.

Deathlock tries to decrypt the drive but fails so Garrett orders him to go to plan B. Plan B involves Deathlock shooting some sort of device at Ward’s chest that simulates a heart attack. As Ward lays dying, Deathlock asks Skye how to decrypt the drive. Skye at first doesn’t help as she wants to see Ward suffer but Deathlock says that Skye isn’t a killer. This gets Skye to reveal that the drive can be encrypted if they reach a certain elevation and Ward is safe.

Before Ward can take off, Hill confronts him as she too is pissed at his betrayal. There is some back and forth bickering but Hill lets him go and tells Tripplett that they hopefully bought Couslon some time to get on the Bus, which he does.

Coulson makes his way through the Bus and fetches Skye in the plane’s cell. As they make their way to take back the Bus, Skye asks if Coulson took down Deathlock. This is news to Couslon so they have a change of plans. They make their way to the loading dock and get into Lola. Ward and Deathlock try to stop them but Lola falls out of the plane and Coulson just manages to get Lola flying before it crashes down in downtown LA. In fact, Coulson manages to land Lola perfectly in front of the Nokia Theater but Skye has awful bed head.

At a motel, Coulson is ready to take down Ward but Hill tells him that he has to do it on his own. Hill tries to get Coulson to realize that SHIELD is no more and even suggests that Coulson come to work at Stark but Coulson says that life is not for him. As Hill leaves, Coulson asks her to say hi to Stark for him but then realizes she can’t as he thinks he is dead.

At the motel’s poolside, FitzSimmons each admit to each other that they are not HYDRA and that comforts bot of them. I felt that this could be the moment where Fitz professes his feelings and kisses Simmons but alas maybe next week.

Tripplett meanwhile is eating junk food and proclaims himself on vacation until Coulson orders him back to work. Tripplett goes to join FitzSimmons at poolside while Coulson and Skye confer. Skye tells Coulson that she did leave a nice gift for them on the encrypted drive that I believe we will find out what that is next week.

When Coulson returns to his room, May is there. You see earlier in the episode, May dug up Coulson’s grave and found an external disk drive that contained a Level 10 classified video report on Project TAHITI to Fury. May shows Coulson the video. And on the video is Coulson. It seems that Coulson was in charge of TAHITI and it was a project that hoped to heal an Avenger. But the side effects are pretty bad from psychosis to even falling into a catatonic state. The only way to make this palpable is a memory wipe. So it seems that it was Coulson himself that led Fury to apply TAHITI to Coulson. Coulson reacts the only way he can.

So we have one more episode left before the season finale. And next week’s episode looks like we learn how Ward became so loyal to Garrett.